Will the council tax freeze hold in Scotland?
There are real concerns this evening that the Scottish government has lost the plot in relation to their proposed freezing of the Scottish council tax next year. While this is a continuation of the move which began last year, they are only promising the same £70 million finance package for councils to enable them to freeze the tax.
However, anybody who lives in the UK knows that inflation has been rampant over the last 12 months and the cost of living has spiralled dramatically. To expect the councils to agree to the council tax freeze while not offering the funding to take up any shortfall is nothing short of crazy. If this position is confirmed then we will either see services cut or new charges introduced for local services over the next 12 months.
Experts now claim that the Scottish government has overstretched itself and it not able to fully fund a host of its promises to the tax payer. This observation has been backed up by recent demands for in excess of £1 billion in extra funding for Scotland - a move which is sure to be ignored by the Treasury.
These are very interesting, yet very dangerous times for the Scottish tax payer.
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